GRAHAM — Jason Michael Banks has been in the Alamance County jail more than two years on charges of statutory rape.

Banks, 45, is eager to defend himself against those and other charges, his attorney, David Remington told a judge Oct. 16. The alleged victim and her mother are also ready to testify against Banks, said Alamance County Assistant District Attorney Sean Boone. The trial should last less than a week.

Yet Banks’ case isn’t scheduled for trial and the earliest his case could be tried is January or February.

Banks is one of 30 inmates who’ve spent more than a year in the Alamance County jail waiting for their cases to be heard. Of those, 12 men have spent more than 600 days — approaching two years — in jail awaiting trial, according to an Oct. 18 jail log from the Alamance County Sheriff’s Department.

Eight of those 12 are charged with first-degree murder and being held without bond. In the four remaining cases, defendants are under high bonds on charges ranging from first-degree rape to armed robbery. In one case, the defendant was mistakenly held in the Alamance County jail after being sentenced in federal court in March. (See related story).

The right to a speedy trial is guaranteed in the U.S. and state constitutions. It’s meant to protect defendants from being imprisoned for an indefinite amount of time before trial, to allow them to prepare their defense and to ensure a fair trial. Over time, courts have determined the definition of “speedy” by considering other factors, such as time needed to examine evidence and attorneys’ scheduling conflicts.

There are a number of reasons that cases might be held up before going to trial. Several defense attorneys cited delays by the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory, attorney caseloads and special pre-trial evaluations for mental health. State budget cuts affecting the number of emergency and fill-in judges have also delayed cases.

“I don’t know of any real over-arching reason,” defense attorney Todd Smith said. “They’re not all like this. Most cases are dealt with in pleas. But those that go to trial, they’re not moving as fast. There’s just a backlog.”

Alamance County District Attorney Pat Nadolski said his office works to move cases and decrease the backlog, but that there is “a finite number of prosecutors and a finite number of court hours.”

THOSE SEEM TO be the hurdles in Banks’ case.

During the Oct. 16 motion to reduce Banks’ bond, Boone said he has two other sex offense cases scheduled for trial ahead of Banks’ case. Those can’t be heard until after verdicts are reached in a capital murder case he’s been trying for several months and could last through the better part of November.

Remington argued the judge should lower Banks’ $60,000 bond because he needs Banks out to help locate witnesses and work on the case. Banks was accused of the crimes allegedly involving a 15-year-old girl after a May 2011 party. Remington says the charges stem from a domestic dispute.

He was charged in June 2011 and taken into custody at his Burlington home by U.S. Marshals in Sept. 2011.

Boone responded that Banks rejected a plea offer. He asked the judge to deny the motion, suggesting the issue could be revisited in the future.

Considering Banks’ criminal record and the charges, Bray upheld his bond. Banks will remain in jail for the foreseeable future.

Remington said that holding a defendant at length reduces their influence and contact with their social circles, preventing them from locating witnesses and working on their defense.

“They sit in there and get forgotten,” Remington said.

And after so much time, witnesses — even those for the state — can disappear. In one of Remington’s cases earlier this year, in which Remington motioned for a speedy trial, the Alamance County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the charges because they couldn’t locate the victim.

One of Smith’s cases has been delayed significantly by forensic testing.

Mark Toby, a.k.a Mark Gasper, of Bronx, N.Y., is accused of a May 28, 2011, shooting of two men at a Burlington convenience store. He’s been in jail since June 6, 2011. After more than two years, he has yet to be indicted.

DNA testing by the state crime lab has held up the case. The office recently got those results and Toby “will be indicted now that we have the facts,” Nadolski said.

Smith said Toby’s case is an anomaly, because he’s from out-of-town and there’s no one here to help him make bond.

“They’re not all like this,” Smith said, though he said that forensic testing often holds cases up — especially blood analysis and testing of seized drugs.

Xavier Slade has been in jail on numerous charges since May 20, 2011.

Defense attorney Monica McKinnie was assigned to Xavier Slade’s cases — including two rapes that occurred in 2010 and 2011 — in March. DNA testing allegedly linked Slade to the October 2010 assault after he was charged in a March 2011 assault.

Slade’s original attorney, Rebecca Greene, withdrew from the case citing a conflict of interest. McKinnie was then assigned the case. Since then, she’s been catching up on the state’s discovery and evidence, she said Thursday. That sort of delay isn’t typical, she said.

Page 3 of 3 -

MURDER CASES USUALLY take longest to bring to trial. Large amounts of evidence must be tested by the state’s crime lab. Law enforcement officers’ schedules can also interfere with trial scheduling, and often more than several officers and detectives are needed to testify in a murder trial.

The number of attorneys involved also complicates them. It’s difficult just to get all the parties in a courtroom to set a trial date, Nadolski said.

There are multiple defendants and multiple lawyers involved in the murder cases for which defendants have been held in jail more than 600 days.

“It’s a finite group of attorneys (assigned by the state’s Indigent Defense Services) that handle first-degree murder cases,” Nadolski said.

On Aug. 19, Jose Carlos Torres filed a handwritten motion requesting a speedy trial, citing the Sixth Amendment and the North Carolina Constitution.

Torres, 25, and two other men — Reginald Keith Watson, 25, and Antonio McMillan, 21 — were charged in the Dec. 7, 2011, shooting death of James Kyle Roland in Mebane.

In an Aug. 29 hearing, Superior Court Judge Richard Stone denied that request. In his order, the judge found that Torres’ attorney, Robert Sharpe, is already obligated to defend two first-degree murder cases scheduled through January.

Two men charged with the 2007 murder of 68-year-old Sara Dixon face the death penalty and have been in custody more than four years awaiting trial. Robert Dennis Dixon, 49, is in the midst of his trial, accused of hiring two men to kill his stepmother. Matthew Devon Fields, 25, is still awaiting trial in the case. A third defendant — Thomas Clay, 40 — pleaded guilty in 2012 in exchange for life in prison. All three were arrested in July 2009 and have been incarcerated since.